A digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism from and about rural America, by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky.
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Friday, September 05, 2014

Sheila Hagar of the Union-Bulletin in Walla Walla, Wash., had a series this week examining staff and service delivery problems at the local Jonathan M.
Wainwright Memorial Veterans Affairs Medical Center and
its outlying community based outpatient clinics it administers
regionally. (Union-Bulletin photo by Greg Lehman: Dr. Don Hill)

In one story Hagar documents continued frustrations that led one doctor to quit the medical center. "Dr. Jonathan Hibbs understood
what it would mean to walk away last month from an institution like the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs," Hagar writes. "Not
being allowed to do his best doctoring for some of the nation’s most
vulnerable patients, however, was a final straw in eight years of
working for the institution, some of that time spent in medical
management at Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial Veterans Affairs Medical
Center."

"The physician saw the agency trip over its own rules again and again," Hagar writes.
"While he was medical director of the Yakima community-based outpatient
clinic, Hibbs said he came to regard the health care system as
top-down management designed to work against employees and patients."

"Veterans who
first go to the Yakima CBOC with an emergency situation, like bleeding
gut or a heart attack, are sent to hospital emergency rooms as protocol
demands, the doctor explained," Hagar writes. While the VA usually pays for that service, if the same veteran goes directly to either of Yakima’s two
hospitals, without first checking in with CBOC, "the VA often balks at
paying those bills, especially if the chest pain turns out not to be a
heart attack. Even though the more direct route to care is medically
safer, VA payment system encourages veterans to waste steps and time in
getting help, Hibbs said."

Another problem is travel, with planned surgeries often re-routed to VA hospitals farther away, such as Portland, Seattle, Spokane or Boise, Hagar writes. "Hibbs calls the situations horrendous. The veterans he’s cared for
generally do not have the resources for such trips: Gas, lodging, meals
for themselves and often for someone who has come along to help add up,
he pointed out."

Not only that, but travel is risky in an area that can get severe winter weather, Hagar writes. Hibbs "supplied a number of news
reports, including one about a 51-year-old veteran who died when a VA
van driven by a volunteer drifted off the road and crashed while en
route to a VA clinic in White City, Ore., in 2011. In
winter of 2008, five veterans from Yakima were headed to Seattle for
appointments over Snoqualmie Pass when the van transporting them skidded
on an icy road and struck a median. At least one suffered injuries, and
responders had difficulty getting to the scene."

Gibbs isn't the only one with complaints. Another doctor, Don Hill, also quit the medical center citing too many problems, Hagar writes. In a 2012 letter he wrote to a state representative but never sent, he said problems included:

• Results—labs and imaging,
for example—for patients sent to Walla Walla were often delayed in
getting back to the Yakima clinic.

• “Those
had to be scanned in Walla Walla; we were not permitted to do that in
Yakima for some reason,” Hill said. “Then I would not have the report
for when the patient came back in.”

•
Referrals for diagnostic testing and specialty care often reflect more
of a concern for preserving equipment and specialists within the parent
facility—Walla Walla, Spokane, Seattle, etc.—than for the safety and
benefit of the patient.

•
Patients with established non-VA providers are required to be seen in
the Yakima clinic to get approval for prescriptions ordered by that
outside doctor, Hill said. Those prescriptions would then be entered
into the computer system under the VA provider’s name so they could be
dispensed by a VA pharmacy service, usually through the mail from the
Walla Walla VA hospital. (Read more)

Americans keep getting fatter, led by the South, the nation's most obese region. In 2013 in Mississippi and West Virginia, two mostly rural states, 35.1 percent of adults were obese, Roberto Ferdman reports for The Washington Post. In 18 states at least 30 percent of adults are obese, and most of the South is included in that list. Only Colorado and Hawaii have obesity rates lower than 22 percent.

Those numbers are a dramatic rise from 1990, when every state had an obesity rate of 15 percent or less, Ferdman writes. By 2000, only Arizona and Colorado were below 15 percent, and by 2010 no state was below 20 percent.

"There is, for instance, a stark racial divide: Obesity rates
rates for blacks exceed 40 percent in 11 states and 30 percent in 41
states; for Latinos, they are greater than 30 percent in 23 states; but
for whites, they are higher than 30 percent in only 10 states," Ferdman writes. "There
is also a wealth divide: Over a third of U.S. adults earning less than
$15,000 a year are obese, while only a quarter of those earning more
than $50,000 annually carry that distinction. And
there's even a generational divide: Baby boomers (adults aged 45 to 64
years old) are more likely to be obese than any other age group." (Read more) (Post map: To view an interactive version click here)

Women's annual salaries remain lower than men's in several rural states, and many rural states are severely lacking in equal pay for men and women, says a report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Women have the lowest median annual earnings in Arkansas, Mississippi, South Dakota and West Virginia, at $30,000, and Louisiana has the worst ratio of earnings between men and women. The report, which also looked at the percentage of women in the workforce and percentage of women in managerial or professional occupations, gave West Virginia and Alabama overall grades of F.

West Virginia, which was ranked last of all states and Washington, D.C., was ranked 49th for earnings ratios between men and women, last for percent of women in labor force and 44th for women in managerial or professional occupations. Alabama, ranked 50th overall, was 43rd in median salary, at $31,200, 46th in earnings ratios between men and women, 50th in percent of women in labor force and
42nd for women in managerial or professional occupations.

"Women in West Virginia are making less now than they were in 2010—when
women were making 69 percent of what a man makes, as compared to 66
percent today, according to the report," Mackenzie Mays reports for the Charleston Gazette.
Tara Martinez, executive director of the West Virginia Women’s Commission told Mays, "We’re actually moving backward,. The discouragement and
the hopelessness that I see as part of my job. I take it home with me.
Sometimes you look at where women are, especially in this state that we
all love so much, and you say, ‘OK, what hope do I give them?’ The hope
that I try to convey is that their voice is the only way to make the
change that they need to make their lives better in this state.”

Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Wyoming were given a D-; Idaho, Indiana, Oklahoma and Kentucky were given a D; and Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah were given a D+. Washington D.C. was the only area to receive an A. (Institute for Women’s Policy Research map)

About 80 percent of American homes are connected to wireless broadband connection, but most consumers are limited in their choice of providers. Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, wants to change that. Wheeler said in a speech that the FCC plans "to promote more choices and protect competition because a lack
of adequate consumer choice inhibits innovation, investment and economic
benefits," Edward Wyatt reports for The New York Times.

Wheeler said: “There is an inverse relationship between competition and the kind of
broadband performance that consumers are increasingly demanding. This is not tolerable.” In his speech Wheeler cited statistics from the Commerce Department’s State Broadband Initiative, which includes a report on Broadband Availability in Urban vs. Rural Areas. (National Broadband Map)

Where did people living in your county move from, and where did those who left go? Emily Badger of The Washington Post reports about updated county-level migration maps with information from 2008-2012 through Census Flows Mapper.

The U.S. Census Bureaudata looks at county-to-county flows, as well as breaking down migration patterns by employment status. For example, Kanawha County, West Virginia, (below) had a population of 190,764 in 2012, with 3,871 people moving to the county from another state and 4,124 leaving for another state. At the same time 4,235 West Virginians moved from another county to Kanawha County, while 4,091 moved to a different county within the state. Also, 347 people moved to the county from outside the U.S. To view the maps, click here.

Thursday, September 04, 2014

For the first time minority students are the majority in U.S. schools, but segregation still exists, with white, African American and Hispanic students often attending different schools, Emily Badger reports for The Washington Post. County-level data is now available from The Urban Institute, using information from the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics,to highlight where students remain segregated. (Urban Institute map: For an interactive version click here)

"A couple of patterns immediately stand out, but it's important to
distinguish what's driving them," Badger writes. "Large portions of the West, the Great
Plains and the Midwest appear on these maps as if they're doing a great
job integrating minority students. But that's largely because there are
few minorities living there. Conversely, it appears in these same places
as if nearly all white children are attending majority-white schools.
But that's due to their underlying demographics as well." (Urban Institute map: For an interactive version click here)

Reed Jordan, a research assistant at the Urban Institute, told Badger, "One thing that this map doesn’t show is that there are two forms of
segregation going on: one is by race and the other is by income. It really isn’t just that
black students attend schools where most of the other children are of
color. It’s that black students attend schools where most of the other
children of color are poor." (Urban Institute map: For an interactive version click here)

Margery Austin Turner, a senior vice president at the Urban Institute told Badger, "This isn’t just a feel-good issue or 'gee what are we doing wrong with
respect to minority kids?' Our country is becoming
majority-minority. We all need to know how to talk to each other and
work with each other, and appreciate each others' perspectives. If we’re
not giving our kids the opportunity to learn that when they’re young
and open-minded, it’s not good for our whole country’s future." (Read more)

The Rural Veterans Coordination Pilot (RVCP), a two-year program, will give up to $2 million to participating governments and organizations to help veterans and their families transition from military service to civilian life in rural or underserved communities, according to a press release from the Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs.
The awards will not only help veterans adjust to rural life but also assist with the coordination of health care and benefits, the availability of medical and mental health services and outreach for veterans and their families. "WIth such a large percentage of enrolled veterans residing in rural and highly rural areas, we welcome the opportunity to focus on this unique population and the great strides Veterans Affairs has made to improve their access to care," said Dr. Carolyn Clancy, Interim Under Secretary for Health.

The five participants are: the Maine Department of Labor, Westcare Washington, Inc., Volunteers of America North Louisiana, New Mexico Department of Veterans' Services and Nebraska Association of Local Health Directors. (Read more)

A major poultry distributor is phasing out antibiotics. Perdue Foods announced on Wednesday that it has removed all antibiotics from its chicken hatcheries, a move that took five years to implement and that goes above and beyond voluntary guidelines by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, reports Agri-Pulse, a Washington newsletter. "The company completely phased out the use of antibiotics approved for use in humans as well as antibiotics used for growth promotion in chicken production."

The company said "it will continue to use antibiotics approved for animal use to combat an intestinal parasite as well as for the treatment and control of illness in sick chicken flocks," Agri-Pulse writes.
Bruce Stewart-Brown, senior vice president of food safety, quality and live operations said in a statement: “It is not realistic or responsible to eliminate all antibiotics. No matter how carefully you raise animals, some are going to be exposed to infections that can only be treated with antibiotics. As veterinarians, we have a responsibility to properly treat those animals." (Read more)

A road trip has turned into a project to document Appalachia through the stories of people who have lived in the region for several decades, Bill Lynch reports for the Charleston Gazette. While traveling from Virginia to New Orleans, Shane Simmons and Jason Barton came up with the idea, deciding that "they wanted to talk to people, learn something of their history and culture and maybe find out things that were in danger of being lost." (Gazette photo: Shane Simmons conducting an interview for the project)

The idea turned into "The Appalachian Project," an ongoing documentary on Facebook in which Simmons and Barton interview Appalachians 80 and older, Lynch writes. Initially, Simmons said when they started the project in February the hope was to get 1,000 to 2,000 likes by the end of the year, but as of Thursday the site had 6,851 likes. Simmons told Lynch, "We had no idea there was such a demand for what we're trying to do"

Simmons said "they expected the senior citizens they spoke with to tell them that the greatest thing that had changed during their lifetimes was technology," Lynch writes. "Instead, they said people had changed." Simmons told him, "They told me people don't get together like they used to. They don't visit homes and that kind of thing. We've lost that closeness." (Read more)

One of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. is taking a major economic hit. The Blue Bunny ice cream plant in St. George, Utah, announced on Tuesday that it is closing its facility, David DeMille reports for The Spectrum & Daily News. About 100 employees work at the facility.

Wells Enterprises, Inc., the parent company of Blue Bunny, said in a statement that the decision was made to "optimize its existing capacity in
Le Mars, Iowa. The decision also allows Wells to more
effectively compete in the ice cream category that has been flat to
declining for several years and has been further challenged by unstable
commodity costs. Wells is
mindful of the impact changes of this nature have on employees and their
families and is committed to helping impacted employees through this
transition."

St. George, located in southwestern Utah on the Arizona border, had a population of 72,897 in the 2010 Census, well above the 2000 population of 49,628, making it the second fastest growing city in the U.S. behind Greeley, Colo. (Read more)

Wednesday, September 03, 2014

As more rural Americans gain access to health insurance under federal health reform, those with a brand new insurance card are seeking out doctors, only to find that many small towns are facing doctor shortages and existing doctors are overloaded with patients and unable to take on new ones. That could soon change for patients seeking osteopathic care, a profession that has steadily grown. Many osteopathic programs are popping up in rural areas, such as Pikeville University in Eastern Kentucky.

"Colleges of osteopathic medicine—there are now 42, including branch
campuses—are seldom attached to teaching hospitals," Michael Ollove reports for Stateline. "Most send their
students to community medical centers for training. The schools tend to
be located in areas that are medically underserved, and they encourage
their graduates to work in such areas. In the past, that has meant building osteopathic medical programs in
rural areas, like Appalachia and the Great Plains. But recently, they
have also located in underserved urban and suburban areas as well. (Stateline graphic)

"Osteopathic doctors are in every state, and colleges of osteopathic
medicine have sprouted up in all regions, some in collaboration with
public universities," Ollove writes. "According to the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, more than 20 percent of medical students now train in osteopathic medicine."

That wasn't always the case. The profession has grown from 13,022 osteopathic practitioners in the U.S. in 1970 to more than 82,000 today, compared to 790,000 medical doctors, Ollove writes. "Most Americans are probably unaware that two tracks of medical training
exist, both of them producing fully licensed physicians. Although
osteopathic medical graduates can and do go on to all the medical
specialties when they become residents, osteopathic medical colleges
discourage early specialization and emphasize general medicine."

Clif Knight, an M.D., and vice president for education at the
American Academy of Family Physicians, "said that while some allopathic
medical schools are strong in family medicine, others are not, perhaps
to the point of not even having departments of family medicine," Ollove writes. Knight told him,
“Osteopathic medicine has a much more consistent focus on primary
care" and gives students
early exposure to patients to emphasize the importance of forging strong
relationships with them. (Read more)

While the closure—or reduction of hours—of small town post offices is not impacting some locals who are only slightly inconvenienced by traveling a little longer to get to the nearest post office, the same can't be said for people living in remote areas, where the nearest office might as well be a million miles away.

That's the case in Wainwright, Ala., located about 350 miles above the arctic circle in the North Slope Borough, where the 575 residents are reeling from the closure two weeks ago of the local post office, Shannon Riddle reports for KTUU-TV in Anchorage. Robert Grimes, principal of Alak School, told her, "When you shut down the post office, you shut down the lifeline. I have teachers that are running out of medications, out of food, need to pay bills,
get their checks, etc. It is the same
for the people in the village. There are no roads out here. We do get
small planes out here twice a day, but if you have to ship stuff in
cargo, it's very expensive. The mail is subsidized, and that's how
everything comes through.”

One of the problems is that Wainwright no longer has a postmaster and finding someone willing to re-locate has been difficult, Riddle said. USPS spokesperson Dawn Peppinger told Riddle, “Unfortunately, we are experiencing
challenges with finding a Postmaster or Postmaster Relief who is
available and willing to fly in to Wainwright and Levelock to operate
the local Post Offices." (Read more)

While many rural towns try to draw tourists by re-creating the past or claiming to be the birthplace of someone famous, a small struggling town in New York is following a new trend in rural America, in which towns market the present, offering tourists a glimpse into the culture of what's happening now, Patricia Leigh Brown reports for The New York Times. (NYT photo by Nathaniel Brooks: Showing how to cultivate seven acres of vegetables)

In New Lebanon, located in the Hudson Valley, locals are pushing “Behold! New Lebanon,” where "ticket-buying visitors are promised an unvarnished glimpse of
present-day country culture, organizers say, which includes being
ferried by school buses to working farms, forests, kitchens, corrals and
a speedway," Brown writes. "There they will 'behold' guides like Cynthia Creech, showing off her genetically rare breed of Randall cattle; Eric Johnson,
training Border collies to shoo Canada geese off public fields; and
Melissa Eigenbrodt, the local postmaster, who can demonstrate the
art of tracking deer—without a gun—by following hoof scrapes along
the trail."

"If the effort succeeds, New Lebanon will join an emerging rural
renaissance—a movement that some are calling 'rural by choice'—in
which small towns are reinventing themselves by embracing local skills
and artisanship," Brown writes. "Across the country, communities are trying a
variety of approaches with varying success, from designated downtown
culinary districts (Bridgeton, N.J.), to artist collaboratives
spearheading small-town revivals (Arnaudville, La.), to the annual
Fermentation Fest in Reedsburg, Wis., which pumps roughly $300,000 into
the local economy." So far, the museum project has netted $55,000, charging $15 to $25 for day tickets or $40 for the weekend.

Other areas have already found success with similar projects, Brown writes. "In
Green River, Utah (population 953), a group of Auburn University design
and architecture graduates and former AmeriCorps/Vista volunteers
started the nonprofit Epicenter
in 2009 (motto: 'Rural & Proud'). They have restored 14 houses and
run school arts programs and sponsor a 'frontier fellowship' for artists
in residence."

"In
Reedsburg (population 9,000), between Chicago and Minneapolis, Donna
Neuwirth, 60, and Jay Salinas, 55, are urban transplants who started as
farmers but went beyond food, creating the nonprofit Wormfarm Institute
to develop what they call a regional culture-shed," Brown writes "The Fermentation
Fest—which includes artist-designed farm stands, a drive with scenic
overlooks of art installations in fields, and opera performed in a hay
wagon—drew 12,000 people last October." (Read more)

Blaming Monsanto herbicides for the declining population of the monarch butterfly, a coalition of environmental and food-safety groups petitioned the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service to grant the butterfly endangered species protection, Chuck Raasch reports for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The groups say the species' U.S. population last year fell to 90 percent below its 20-year average, from one billion in the mid-1990s to 35 million last year. (Post-Dispatch photo)

The Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Food Safety and the Xerces Society said in a joint statement that the “butterfly’s dramatic decline is being driven by the widespread
planting of genetically engineered crops in the Midwest where most
monarchs are born. The
dramatic surge in Roundup use with Roundup Ready crops has virtually
wiped out milkweed plants in Midwestern corn and soybean fields.” They said "the monarch is also threatened by climate change,
drought and heat waves, urban sprawl and logging on its wintering
grounds in Mexico," Raasch writes.

Fish and Wildlife spokesman Gavin Shire "said his
agency was required by federal regulations to respond to the petition 'to the extent practicable' within 90 days," Raasch writes. "The agency could decide to
extend the review up to an additional nine months before making a
decision on the request. The butterfly currently has no special
protection designation from the FWS." (Read more)

Tuesday, September 02, 2014

School boards are mostly gender-balanced, with more than 40 percent of school board members nationally being female. But a study cited in the new book The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberation, and Institutions, found that "Unless they make up a supermajority of a board, women don't comment and endorse motions as often as men do," Sarah Sparks reports for Education Week.

The study, conducted by Brigham Young University and Princeton University, examined the minutes from 87 schools boards in 20 states, "analyzing how often men and women commented and made motions or initiated other actions during meetings," Sparks writes. Researchers looked at the number of men and women on the board, and the number of times each spoke. They found that women spoke disproportionately less than men, especially when they were outnumbered, Sparks writes. Women "only made motions as often as the men on their boards when they made up
at least 60 percent of the board, and only commented as often as men
when they made up 70 percent or more of the board. When in the minority,
women used fewer than three-quarters of their fair share of speaking
opportunities. In an 80-20 split, women in the minority contributed less
than 15 percent of the conversation."

The study was similar to a 2012 University of Arizona study
"that collected and analyzed recorded samples of conversations of female
and male scientists," Sparks writes. "It found that when women spoke about science to
other female scientists, they sounded and felt competent and engaged;
when talking to male scientists about science, they felt and sounded
less competent and reported less engagement—a reaction the researchers
in that study attributed to women feeling subconsciously threatened by
the stereotype of women being 'bad at science.'" (Read more)

"While the nation as a whole has finally clawed its way back to
pre-recession job numbers, non-metro counties have seen virtually no
growth in jobs in the last three years," Tim Marema reports for the Daily Yonder. A report by the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture "attributed the slower employment growth in rural areas to several
factors: slow rural population growth, a lower percentage of college
graduates and a higher percentage of older residents in rural areas
versus metro ones." Rural areas did see growth "in agriculture and extractive industries like oil-and-gas development." (USDA graphic)

Patrick Gottsch, founder and chairman of RFD-TV, appeared Sunday on CNN's “Reliable Sources” to discuss the proposed mergers between Comcast Cable and Time Warner Cable and AT&T U-Verse with DirecTV that could lead to Rural TV being canceled in many markets. Last year Comcast canceled Rural TV in New Mexico and Colorado.

Gottsch said David Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast, told Congress that Comcast was "primarily an urban-clustered cable company," but at least 14 percent of the 30 million people the merged company would serve are rural. Gottsch said it would be “a significant disadvantage for our channel” for Comcast to control service to that many people and refuse to carry RFD-TV. He said he expects the merger to go through, but is “trying to do everything we possibly can to raise the awareness” of the issue. He said, “They have to make sure that large, under-served audiences are addressed in this merger.” (CNN video)

A rural school district in North Carolina is trying to cure years of low scores and decreasing enrollment by thinking globally. Edgecombe County, where most of students live in poverty and about 80 percent are African Americans, has three of the state's lowest-performing elementary schools and has lost about 700 students in the last
three years, Reema Khrais reports for North Carolina Public Radio. (Khrais photo: Kindergarten students learning Spanish on the first day of school)

But prospects appear to be on the rise through the Martin Millennium Academy in Tarboro, "a unique K-8 school with international teachers and a curriculum focused
on global education," Khrais writes. Instructors hail from Nairobi, Manila, Auckland, Kingston, Beijing, London, and Tarboro. Each grade focuses on a different area of the world and incorporates that area's culture, history, geography and economy into daily instruction.

"Along with its global theme, kindergarten students have the opportunity
to receive all of their instruction—Science, Math, Social Studies—in
Spanish," Khrais writes. "Teachers typically don't incorporate any English instruction
until the students reach third grade. The school's program will expand
each year until the current kindergarten class reaches eighth grade." Researchers have said that students "enrolled in dual language/immersion programs score significantly higher
on state tests than their peers and are less likely to drop out."

Officials say the global school "will help transform their rural district and its poor
academic reputation," Khrais writes. John Farrelly, superintendent of
Edgecombe County Public Schools, told Khrais, “A lot of our kids have not even left the city of Tarboro, so we want to
bring the world to Tarboro. We feel like global education is part
of our recipe for success.” (Read more)

When wild animals are suspected to have been illegally killed and officials want to put a price tag on the value of those animals, they typically turn to one man — Ed Clark.
Clark, president of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, a teaching and research hospital for wildlife and conservation medicine, is "also an expert witness for the Fish & Wildlife Service,U.S. Justice
Department and other agencies, testifying about how to calculate the
financial value of wild animals," Eric Freedman reports for Great Lakes Echo, a service of the Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University. (Wildlife Center of Virginia photo)

"In the 1980s, Clark developed a protocol for putting a price tag on
wildlife. It originated with a situation in which the operators of a
private shooting preserve in Virginia had illegally trapped hawks and
migratory birds," Freedman writes. "His approach treats wildlife as property, much like real estate,
without factoring in such intangibles as spiritual value or aesthetics.
If a house is destroyed, what would it cost to rebuild it? If a house is
damaged, what would it cost to repair?"

Clark said there are three ways to base calculations — replacement, rehabilitation and fair market value, Freedman writes, citing the case of a Wisconsin father and son who pled guilty to illegal possession of one federally protected bald eagle but weer suspected of poisoning others, and other species. They paid $100,000 in restitution to federal and state agencies and $40,000 in fines, and were barred from hunting, fishing and trapping for seven years and five years.

"Replacement means actual replacement – 'restoring to the ecosystem an
animal that is able to quite literally replace the one that was taken,'
he said," Freedman writes. "Thus, a chick isn’t an actual replacement for a 16-year-old
eagle. In court papers, the prosecution cited Clark’s $2,500 valuation
for the poisoned turkey vulture, 'based on similarity to large hawks,
with adjustments for size, slow rate of maturity and longevity,' while
dead crows and ravens were valued at $450-$750 each 'based on size,
similarity to raptors, with adjustment for relative ease of rearing.'”

"Second, if an animal is illegally shot and wounded, what would it cost to rehabilitate it so it could return to the wild?" Freedman writes. "And third, what is the animal’s fair market value 'where a legal market
exists' in the United States or abroad. As an example, he noted that birds of prey such as falcons can legally be sold."

"Under the law, doing the math for restitution is a matter of determining
the 'empirical value' of an animal, without regard to what people
consider a 'popular species' or the rarity of the animal," Freedman writes. Clark told Freedman, “Social valuation is not what’s being asked for. That’s entirely subjective." He said values of some animals have been well-established, such as $10,000 for an adult baby eagle and $5,000 for a juvenile. (Read more)

As political races begin to heat up, a major issue cropping up in key Senate races in largely agriculture states is the Farm Bill, Kristina Peterson reports for The Wall Street Journal. Republicans and Democrats on either side of the fence concerning the bill's merits are using it as a launching pad to promote their own campaigns while also using the bill as fuel to fire their criticism against their opponents.

"Because it was a compromise, the measure remains a target for critics,
including conservatives who contend it is too expensive and liberals who
say it curbs food-stamp funding too much," Peterson writes. "Incumbents who voted for it
point to it as a major legislative achievement at a time when Congress
is criticized for partisan gridlock. Many Democrats are touting the law, seizing the chance to pummel
conservatives who oppose it—positions many took during their primary
campaigns."

"Democrats in . . . this year's
tight contest to determine control of the Senate are highlighting their
support for the bill while many GOP candidates are saying Congress
missed an opportunity to overhaul costly food-stamp and farm programs," Peterson writes.

"Not all GOP candidates are working to distance themselves from the farm bill," Peterson writes. "In Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who easily defeated a primary challenger, has trumpeted his role helping to get a pilot program for hemp growers included in the bill. Meanwhile, his Democratic rival, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, has faulted Mr. McConnell's agriculture record, emphasizing that the Farm Bill technically expired under his leadership before a new deal was reached." (Read more)

The Kaiser Family Foundation will conduct a reporters-only webinar at 10 a.m. ET Wednesday, Sept. 10, to release the results of the 2014 Employer Health Benefits Survey. Participating in the event will be Drew Altman, president and CEO of Kaiser; Maulik S. Joshi, president of the Health Research & Educational Trust; the study's lead author, Gary Claxton, a Kaiser vice president and director of the Health Care Marketplace Project; and Matthew Rae, a study co-author and Kaiser senior policy analyst. After a short presentation reporters will be able to ask questions. For more information or to register click here.

Less than two weeks after rural-centric Dollar General was spurned by Family Dollar in its takeover bid against rival Dollar Tree, Dollar General has raised its offering price to $9.1 billion, Michael de la Merced reports for The New York Times.

Dollar Tree has added new provisions to avoid antitrust
issues, de la Merced writes. "Under the terms of the revised offer, Dollar General will pay $80 a
share, up from its original bid of $78.50 a share and from Dollar Tree’s
$74.50-a-share bid. It will also pay a $500 million reverse termination
fee if their agreement falls apart over antitrust concerns. And Dollar General has more than doubled the number of stores – to 1,500
– it is willing to divest to satisfy antitrust regulators." (Read more)

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About The Rural Blog

This blog generally follows traditional journalistic standards. It's not about opinions, though you may read one here occasionally. It's about facts that we think will be useful to rural journalists, non-rural journalists who do rural stories, and others interested in rural issues. We don't try to be provocative, so we don't generate as many comments as most blogs with the level of traffic we have, but we certainly invite comments -- and contributions, to al.cross@uky.edu. Feel free to republish blog items, with credit to us and the original source.